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I've been keeping in touch with the hospital for regular updates on dad. If I'm entirely honest, following the call last week from them asking me if I could go in as dad had suddenly become aggressive, confused and disorientated, I was a bit apprehensive about going in again.
When I arrived, with Ant, a nurse was sitting in another chair, just watching him. On seeing us, the nurse stood up to let us sit down but hovered nearby. Dad was sitting in the padded, winged PVC coated chair, fast asleep. I'd tried to gently wake him several times by squeezing his hand or gently shaking his shoulder, however, he appeared agitated to be woken up and so we decided to just sit there a while to see if he would wake by himself.
He didn't and we left after about 45 minutes. The nurse immediately sat down. Since the aggressive episode last week, he has to have a nurse by his side 24/7, just in case.
Today, however, he was awake. I had gone in by myself, leaving Ant at home, happily sorting his own bedroom out, utilising the little bit of space in dad's bedroom (on his bed) to be able to sort all dad's crap out of his own bedroom. Ant had made a lot of progress and wanted to continue doing so.
Dad appeared pleased to see me. I asked him how he'd been doing.
'Ah, he said, 'Are you by yourself?'
I said I was. Then it got weird. I asked how he'd been and he said, 'it's been very weird and I do realise I am in some kind of institution. It's a bit unclear what happened. I remember the police chasing me and they found me and I was suspended by a wire in between two really high buildings and they had to knock down two very expensive walls to get me out. I know I've been in some sort of trouble with the police although I'm not sure it was all my fault. I know I had something to do with it because I know I may have caused something but I'm not sure how. I know there were a few out of date tins of meat and it somehow got into the water system for south east Cardiff and poisoned so many people. I remember being on the bus but I don't know how I was on the bus, because I had left my bus pass at home you see... I know some of this isn't exactly true but I do know that they caught you and gave you some sort of injection you see, which knocked you out and as soon as you came round and weren't happy about it, they gave you a stronger injection and knocked you out again. I was the Arch Rogue and the price on my head was huge and I was on the run. I ran and ran to get away but in the end they caught me.'
He looked at me and said, 'I know some of that may be just in my head but I can't work out which part is true and which isn't.'
I told him I was OK and hadn't been jabbed by the police. He looked surprised. 'You haven't? Oh! I realise I must be locked up in some psychiatric place maybe...'
This was pretty shocking - not the whole police thing, but that reality and hallucinations and dreams and nightmares had all become mixed up into one and he still wasn't able to figure out or reason which was reality.
The tea trolley came round then and dad asked for a black coffee with milk. As he has three broken ribs he wasn't able to sit up in bed himself so the nurse came in, gloved up and in a well practised routine, flattened the bed (electronic bed) so his feet were up. Put two slidey sheets underneath dad and slid him down toward the head end, removed the slidey sheets and put the bed flat, then told dad to hold on while he lifted the head end of the bed so dad could sit up in bed and drink his coffee.
I left the hospital in a bit of a confused state myself, unsure what to make of it all and went to my friend's house to talk it through.
The consultant will be doing the rounds tomorrow and they said they will ask someone to call me to let me know what's happening.
The photo is one of the items found in Ant's room belonging to our late grandfather. A 1930s (we think) radio. It has no plug and a 2 wire cord. Anyone know anything about these please let me know.
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